the sand and the rotator
by the general girl
Summary: 22: Ichigo tries his best to be a good student; Rukia intervenes. — ichiruki, drabble collection.
1. lines of flight

**note:** Spoilers for Chapter 459

_(prompt: day03, lines of flight)_

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><p>The first time she tries, it is on a whim, a desire born from a series of uncharacteristically rainy nights. There is the soft glow of power, of pulsing light and then the red tendrils of souls flickering into existence around her. The reiraku—soul ribbons—of the guards and nii-sama rippling red strands for her to follow. But.<p>

She blinks, breathes deep and holds her reiatsu in place, squinting into the dark; there is something missing.

Rukia looks at the red ribbons of light, counts them to the beat of the rain drumming down above her head, and pretends she does not know what she is looking for.

Eventually, enough long moments pass that the rain subsides, and she lets the threads die away.

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><p>She ventures back to Karakura, sometimes. Renji always covers for her and if Captain Ukitake suspects, he never says anything. There is an unspoken but tacit agreement—go, if she must. But never speak, never touch, never let anyone see. Afu—Kurumadani-san would always loudly complain that <em>kids these days don't know what they're doing<em>, but then he'd grudgingly let her take over his patrols for the day or two that she stays anyways.

Looking at Karakura spread below her from a rooftop, she watches as the glimmer of reiraku spider-webs out around her in a hoarding mass of white. Rukia tells herself that it is good practice, that the technique is useful for keeping a constant watch for wayward souls, _just in case, just in case_, but somehow even she herself finds the argument hard to believe.

She finds his ribbon in the first pause between one breath and the next.

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><p>It becomes a habit that she never acknowledges.<p>

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><p>One day, seventeen months later, there is a soft tap on her shoulder. Rukia looks up, startled awake from her doze, fingers still stained with ink from reports to see her captain looking down at her, smile soft.<p>

"You have a mission in the human world," he tells her, and Rukia forgets how to breathe.

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><p>She stands next to Urahara and Isshin under the awning of the shoten; above them, the rain bears down hard.<p>

"Find my wayward son, Rukia-chan," Isshin says, and his words may be light, but his voice is not, and neither is the sword she hefts in her arms, glow throwing strange shadows against darkened walls.

Rukia nods, and there is the strong flaring light, and the ribbons, Urahara's and Isshin's red and thick behind her. She finds Ichigo's quickly enough, his reiraku faint but familiar, only little shaking tendrils at first but strengthening, strengthening.

She takes a deep breath and follows the lines home.

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><p><strong>note:<strong> Dipping my toes into the Bleach fandom! This will just be a short of catch-all for any more drabbles I do for 31_days off on LJ. I hoped you guys liked this, and any feedback is always loved.


	2. and all these purposeful nothings

**note:** Spoilers for chapter 423.

_(prompt: day01, bodies without organs)_

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><p>She looks over Karakura Town from her perch, and the buzzing of the streetlamp sends vibrations through her feet. It is a small thing that keeps her anchored to this—to his reality (and because thinking his name hurts, she does not, she has not for a long, long time)and she savors the slow subtle shift and the burn in the back of her legs, fighting to stay still, to stay light and afloat.<p>

It is a small thing, but in Karakura, where no one ever looks up, where no one ever meets her eyes with a widening of their own, disbelief and slow, cocky smile forming all at once, it is the only thing that reminds her that she exists, has existed and left memories here that the living can touch.

If she turns a little, she can see Karakura High School out of the corner of her eye—just her peripheral vision, an accident, really.

It is not as if she ever looks for any purposeful shades of orange.

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><p><strong>note:<strong> I'm kind of thinking about doing some sort of gift!fic thing for the holidays (i.e Write a little fic for everyone who requests), and I was wondering if anyone would be interested? If you are, hit me up with a comment on the post on my LJ (click the homepage link on my profile). Thanks for reading!


	3. if wishes were horses

**note:** Spoilers up toward the end of the Soul Society arc.

_(prompt: day07, an assemblage)_

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><p>In the Senzaikyu, everything is white.<p>

She wears white too. White robes, marking her for execution, for death. She is monochromatic; even her eyes have darkened to a near black.

The only color on her person is the livid red of the collar circling her throat.

White, and the taste of ash on her tongue—these are the last things she will know before she dies.

Because even if she walks in the open, when she closes her eyes she will still see these four white walls, blank expanses to leech her soul dry. It is the only regret that Rukia allows for _herself_; she regrets chaining a boy to a destiny that she had no right to write, she regrets their hurt, and the blood they spilled, but no, never her own death. That is a debt owed and something she is willing to pay.

But, _but_ if only between descending the stairs of the tower and her ascension on Sokyoku Hill she could have one last bite of summer-ripe fruit, one last hour spent on top of her favorite roof, one last night listening to the wind from the bottom of Mt. Koifushi—

one last glimpse of a strong profile outlined against the setting sun and bright, orange hair.

Pressing a small hand against cool stone walls, Rukia bows her head and wishes the force of her wants could wash the white away.

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><p><strong>note:<strong> ...I completely butchered that prompt. Also! An anon asked in a review where the title came from, and since I couldn't answer through the review or email, I'll explain here in case anyone else was wondering.

In the Souls/Vibes Bleach Databooks, two bonus chapters were included that took place right before the beginning of the manga, titled Ch00a and Ch00b (unlike the Bleach pilot, these chapters are canon). It gave a snippet of what Rukia and Ichigo's lives were like right before she left for her mission in Karakura, and the term "the sand" was used to reference Ichigo while "the rotator" was referenced to Rukia. I'm pretty sure the metaphor was that Rukia is the "rotator" that moves Ichigo's "sand". If anyone wants to see the chapters and can't find it, just leave a review or a message letting me know and I'll gladly give you the links. Thank you for reading, and as always, feedback is loved!


	4. the silence after battle

**note:** Originally posted on LJ as a gift!fic.

_(prompt: for Paige, the silence after battle)_

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><p>Everything is quiet.<p>

It always is, after the rush of adrenaline fades and his body starts to recognize the bruises, the cuts and scrapes and gashes bleeding red, and suddenly he aches all over when five minutes ago he 'd felt invincible; he had _been_ invincible. The silence is never the same—there are different ones for every victory, every defeat. But to Ichigo—to Ichigo the silence has always been for waiting.

It's an automatic thing: he tenses up, freezes, the weight of Zangetsu heavy in his hand, one ear cocked, always listening for the sound of her voice, for a piece of praise—never given lightly—when he's done well, or admonishment whenever he's been particularly stupid; a ready lecture, words and a kick to the head when he needs it the most.

Even now, when he fights most of his battles alone and she may be hundreds of miles and an entire _world_ away he still listens.

And in return, from the corners of his heart, she always answers without fail.

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><p><strong>note:<strong> Thanks guys for all your feedback (especially to my anon reviewer, Fried Chicken-love the name, by the way)!


	5. the first to know

**note:** Just some silly fluff.

_(prompt:lots of Christmas music)_

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><p>Renji was the first one to notice.<p>

He took one step into the room and then walked out again with an exasperated: "_Goddammit_, why _him_?"

Rukia barely looked up from her sketching at the head of the couch. Ichigo, lying on his back above her with one long arm dangling, muttered a sleepy _what's with him? _and shifted until the textbook he'd been studying before he dozed off dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Oi, watch it!"

"You've got a hard head anyways." he snorted, before closing his eyes and going back to sleep.

Rukia started humming as she drew.

And the entire time, Ichigo's dangling fingertips lightly brushed her arm.

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><p><strong>note: <strong>Thank you for all your reviews!


	6. all exposed

**note:** More silliness. Takes place some time before the HM arc.

_(prompt: for Sara, stolen flannel shirts)_

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><p>Rukia doesn't know why Ichigo is freaking out.<p>

She'd been waiting for him to finish his shower, and the boy always took so long that she'd taken her bath at Urahara's and made her way back before he was done. The girl had been quietly reading manga on his bed when Ichigo had come in, taken one look at her, and started spluttering incoherently.

Rukia isn't sure if she should be annoyed or concerned, so she settles for a combination of the two: "Stop acting stupider than usual—what's wrong with you?"  
>Ichigo chokes, eyes bugging out of his head, and manages to spit out a strained, "<em>What are you wearing?"<em>

She blinks, looking down at the worn flannel shirt she has on; Yuzu's pajamas were in the wash and she'd seen the edges of it peeking out from a pile of clothing in his closet.

Finally, Rukia answers, "A shirt."

"Correction, _my shirt_. _And put some pants on for god's sake._"

She scowls, "It's not like you're using it, doofus. And I do not have a clean pair of pants left. All of yours were too big."

"_You tried on my pants?"_

Rukia gets up, and the movement bunches the fabric for a moment and flashes Ichigo an indecent amount of bare thigh. The boy looks like he's stopped breathing.

"What's your problem?" she reiterates with a scowl, moving closer to peer at him with suspicious eyes.

If possible, Ichigo flushes even harder, backing up as Rukia encroaches on his shrinking personal space. His back hits the door.

"My problem is that you're walking around practically—practically _naked_. What if my sisters see? _What if my dad sees_?"

Rukia leans back, miffed, "Well, if you have a problem with it, you should go buy me more clothes."

Her face brightens at the thought of all the bunny themed pajamas she'd seen in one store window, "You could take me _shop-ping_." She says the word like it's something foreign and exotic.

Ichigo tips his head heavenwards with a groan, and Rukia knows she has won.

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><p>A few days later, as he walks behind an excited Rukia laden with shopping bags, wallet much lighter than it'd been that morning, Ichigo knew he shouldn't have agreed. <em>Oh well, anything to get her to stop parading around his room all…<em>exposed.

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Kon's whispers in the back of his mind, _do you really?_ and an image of Rukia, wearing only his old shirt—all pale skin and long legs—flashes across his vision.

Ichigo shakes his head hard, and reminds himself to steer her away from any stores that sell lingerie.

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><p><strong>note:<strong> Thank you for everyone's thoughtful reviews! Also, to anon nemesis: I'm sorry, but I don't think there's a fully scanned and translated version of the databooks up atm, if there is, I'm not sure where you'd be able to find it. ^^"


	7. things to see

**note:** Takes place after Chapter 423.

_(prompt: none)_

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><p>For the first month, he waited by the river for her every day.<p>

And every day for a month, she sat by his side, head leaning careful against his shoulder, like they could feel each other at all. Sometimes, she thought her presence next to him was still something solid and real, that he clenched his jaw because he could still feel the ripple of her reiatsu against his own.

But his eyes never focused on hers and where his power had been, where the pressure of his soul used to ebb and flow against her own, cresting in bright, barely leashed waves—

There was nothing.

But that wasn't true, and seeing his devastated eyes, the slump in his shoulders and tight line of his mouth made her want to yell at him, grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him like she used to and couldn't anymore.

He was not _nothing_; he—Ichigo had always been more than just the black of his shihakusho or the glare of sunlight off of Zangetsu's blade. His heart, his goodness and sincerity and goddamn stubbornness, his ability to understand and empathize and his capacity for changing others around him, these things defined him long before any manifestation of his power did.

_Why can't you see? _Rukia thought every time. Why couldn't Ichigo _see_?

But _she_ could still see him, and in the end, she left him first, staring into the muddy banks of the river like it would give him the key to everything he wanted.

At the very least, Rukia thought, mind on Captain Kurotsuchi and experimental reiatsu techniques, that will be the one thing that she could try and do for him.


	8. things lost and learned

**note:** Spoiler for chp. 459/460 onward, which is incidentally when this takes place.

_(prompt: loosely "inability to...")_

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><p>It's hard talking to her; he isn't really sure what to say first, how to get past the surface of their newly reclaimed friendship—past the placid surface of a still lake or some metaphorical bullshit like that.<p>

They can trade insults, laugh about division duties, and no matter what he knows he's got her back and that she's got his, but…

But he doesn't know how to go deeper than that. Maybe he could have, once. Maybe it even used to be easy. But he hadn't known what to say when he found her, staring and still under the shade of Mt. Koifushi after she received her promotion, just like he hadn't known what to say when she looked up at him with large, dark eyes forty years ago, seconds before he walked away. He'd stood there both times, his shadow thrown between them like something dark and looming. Ineffectual. Clumsy with the halting syllables that refused to unstick from his throat.

He doesn't know how to be like Ichigo, doesn't know how to do that _thing _that those two do, that Ichigo has so effortlessly mastered— speaking without words, with exactly the right look, the right touch, and when words _are_ spoken, how to choose the perfect ones, how to bring light and life back into her eyes. How to save her when no one else can, or will.

He thinks that he shouldn't have let her go all those decades ago; he should've been selfish, should have held on and stood up to his future captain and told Byakuya to fuck off, that she's with him and he's all the family she'd ever need. But shinigami live long lives, and that leaves time for an ample amount of regrets.

But Rukia is strong, even stronger now, and she builds herself back up, ultimately accepts the vice captaincy and her brother's gloves with pride. He supposes he's got Ichigo to thank for that too.

Standing here now with the rest of the shinigami as he watches Rukia give the boy back his powers, Renji gives up, gives in. _You better not fuck this up like I did._

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><p><strong>note:<strong> Obviously in Renji's pov.


	9. snowfall

**note:** Indeterminate time.

_(prompt: snowfall)_

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><p>It's the first snow of the season. There's the grey sky, the empty streets, quiet in anticipation of the storm, and him watching her in the middle of the road. His first instinct had been to yell at her to get out of the street, <em>did she want to get herself killed<em>? But considering that he's dealing with a death god, it would've been a stupid thing to say. In the end Ichigo settles for keeping an eye on her from the sidewalk, shoulders tense, the bag of groceries they'd been sent out to get lax in his grip.

Rukia isn't paying any attention to the road or any threat of impending death. Instead, her head is tipped towards the sky and the stray flakes of white that fall every now and then. She doesn't try catching them, with her hands or otherwise, like Ichigo thought she might. Instead, she just stands.

Her eyes are closed, and she might've been a statue, her skin a pearl white, her hair a jet black against the snow. She looks at home in the middle of the flurry. Ichigo remembers that Sode no Shirayuki is the most beautiful zanpakutou in Soul Society, that she is of the ice. He also remembers that a zanpakutou is a manifestation of the soul.

He can understand why Rukia looks so at ease in the snow.

Her eyes open after a while, and it's then that the storm starts in earnest. She walks back to the sidewalk, to him. This close, he can make out the ice clinging to her long lashes, to the ends of her hair, to her pale cheeks. She doesn't seem real, more doll-like than actual girl.

Rukia looks perturbed by the expression on his face, and scowling, she snaps, "What are you looking at? Let's go home, idiot."

Ichigo smiles, and starts walking before she can snipe at him about that, too. "Yeah, lets go home."

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><p><strong>note:<strong> I wish it would snow here. orz


	10. here are the facts

**note:** Done for a comment fic meme on LJ. Changed the prompt slightly.

_(prompt: when I move, you move)_

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><p>They guide each other.<p>

At first it was because he needed her to show him where to go and where to strike. It was a matter of survival, and she'd always excelled at that.

Now, he's more than competent. She doesn't have to watch his every move anymore; he's proven over and over again that he's capable, that he can handle things. That he's grown.

And he—Ichigo doesn't need her with him on hollow hunts anymore. His power means he doesn't need her to back him up in a fight; experience and knowledge means he doesn't need her to explain everything with her shitty drawings.

They do it all anyway.

One day, they'll figure out why, and things will progress and they'll acknowledge that their relationship's changed—that it's been changing for a very, very long time now. One day they'll accept the fact that they've gone beyond the point of no return a long way back. But for now—for now they only know this:

_When you move, I move. _


	11. quiet moment

**note: **My own little headcanon-a quiet moment between all the fighting for Ichigo and Rukia in the middle of the current arc.

_(prompt: none)_

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><p>Rukia doesn't say a word when Ichigo walks into his room, slamming the door shut behind him. She only watches—one eyebrow raised—as he dumps his bag on the floor and takes the few steps necessary to collapse face first across his bed.<p>

There's a beat of silence, and then Rukia moves, giving up her previous seat at his desk to sit next to him on the bed. The manga she'd been reading before lies face down and forgotten on the table.

Ichigo must have felt the bed dip under her weight, but he doesn't move, doesn't make a sound. It isn't until a small hand presses against his shoulder in a silent _rough day?_ that he shifts around and his head winds up in Rukia's lap.

As soon as they make contact, Ichigo lets out one long, exhausted huff of breath.

They sit like that in silence until Yuzu calls them down for dinner later in the evening.


	12. after the fact

**note: **It's two in the morning and I have a test on integral calculus in a couple of hours, 'nough said. Takes place far, far in post-series.

_(prompt: white day)_

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><p>"Hey Rukia, happy White Day." There's a rustling of fabric as the man kneels, a small package in his hands. The sunlight filtering through the trees of Mt. Koifushi creates dappled shadows on his face.<p>

"I know it isn't much, but I figured it'd be something you'd like. I know it's not that homemade crap that Ishida always makes for Inoue, but I don't know, I guess—"

A cough.

"Anyways, everyone's been doing okay. Keigo and Mizuiro actually got through the academy, can you believe that? And Renji says he mi—Right."

The man stops midsentence, takes a moment to breathe.

"I can't…I can't do this, Rukia. It's been years and I still can't fucking do this. Every single day, every single day I wake up and I expect to see you next to me, to hear your voice. Sometimes I lose track of myself and I forget. That's not so bad. It's remembering again that's the worst. You gotta be there to pick up the slack for me, who the hell's gonna kick me back into shape when I need it?"

A longer pause this time.

"…sorry. I know what you'd say—that I should be able to handle things now. I know."

The man takes something else out from the inside of his robes. It's a bundle of letters.

"I…I started writing letters the year right after you—I wrote some letters. Shit did nothing to help, but I figured you'd like to read them anyways—that somewhere out there you can hear me, that you're still—

"I'll just leave them here with your present, alright?"

The man sits in front of the simple grave marker for a long, long time before standing up and leaving.

He pretends to himself that he can hear her whispered goodbye.

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><p><strong>note:<strong> Crossposted to tumblr. (I don't know why I write angst it doesn't make me happy at all auuuugh.)


	13. stronger

**note:** Takes place some time in the near future of the current arc.

_(prompt: worry)_

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><p>There's a rending noise in the air, a choking in the lungs. Air is vital, even to the dead. The arrow misses her skin by a bare hiss, tearing through black fabric, leaving smoke in its wake. Her reiatsu spikes, reacting to the adrenaline, to the unnatural power of what she is fighting, and she can feel his whisper against hers in response, grinding and grating.<p>

He is coming, even as she whips around, sends Shirayuki's ice hurtling towards her enemy's heart, and she is pissed.

She doesn't need this.

She can take care of herself.

By the time he gets to her, a blur of black and red, the enemy is already dead. The rest of the battle is calming around them, and Soul Society will live another day. In the distance, Rukia notes the pink flurry of her niisama's bankai; she ignores the man next to her, the one whose reiatsu vibrates with fury.

"_Rukia_."

A pause, and then she finally turns to look at him. She doesn't flinch under his weighted stare or the feel of his power. She's never been afraid of him, even when she should.

"I'm fine, Ichigo. You can't keep rushing from your battles to check on me—I've been a shinigami for far longer than you have, I can hold my own," she slants a look at him from under long lashes, more out of tiredness than any attempt at being coy. "I thought I had already drilled that into your thick skull, or perhaps you need another kick? Maybe to jog your memory?"

Ichigo scowls, and the intensity of his reiatsu lessens. Rukia nods in approval—he is much better at control, now.

"Jeez, most people would be happy for the back up or—hey, _oi_ Rukia, where you going?"

She'd walked off in the middle of his sentence, sheathing Shirayuki in the process. "Back to headquarters, idiot. We can't _all_ just stand around looking stupid."

Rukia hears indignant spluttering behind her, and she smiles, because that means he's alright. She knows that he's edgy, wary and weary of the new enemy, of the deaths and fighting—that he still worries too much for her sometimes, her leap in front of Tsukishima's blade fresh in his mind. She knows he can't afford the distraction of worrying for her, and she can't accept being _coddled_ that way; so Rukia pushes, and pushes, and pushes, to remind both him and herself that this badge is on her arm for a reason. She's earned that much, at least.

But Rukia doesn't say anything or pull away when Ichigo finally catches up, his hand wrapping tentatively around hers—even as the barracks, and other people, come into view.

They all need reassurances from time to time.


	14. train of thought

**note:** Takes place at the end of chapter 56.

_(prompt: lots of depressing fic)_

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><p>He's on the ground, and he wants to get, <em>get up<em>, but he can't and it's not—it's not because of the gash in his chest, the blood pooling beneath his body. Instead it's as if the weight of her eyes—of her stare, keeps him prostrate on the ground, heavy like bullion, like bricks, like every expectation that he has ever failed to meet, like—

_I'll never forgive you_

—he can't reach her, he can't even close his eyes and look away from her face, the wetness that is beginning to streak her cheeks, bone pale in the moonlight, bone pale like death, like.

His mouth is moving, he is speaking, he's sure of it; he tries to get her to stay, to not be so stupid just wait let him get up he can _beat this_ _he can save her it doesn't have to be this way—_

But that isn't true. There's only the silence, and her ramrod-straight back, and then the closing of the paper-screen doors.

He thinks he can hear the hiss when they shut, the hiss in the middle of the rumble of thunder, of rain, and it loosens something in his chest—the hold she must have somehow put on him, and he moves, finally lets his head drop to the slick concrete below and

_i came to protect you but it was_

_it was_

then the scream is tearing itself from his throat, something full of useless rage, _so much—_

_it was he that was protected again and again and again and his mother's face for a second there and her face will her face now feature in his nightmares too?_

_(Why can't I save you?)_

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><p><strong>note:<strong> Tried to experiment a bit with style here. The shifting of third to first to third at the end is probably a bit weird. OTL

Also, haven't said it in a while but thank you to everyone that reviews (especially that lovely anon that I couldn't reply to)! Every kind word makes me smile, and concrit is always endlessly useful.


	15. carry me home tonight

**note:** CH. 459 spoilers.

_(prompt: n/a)_

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><p>Helplessness in one long scream, stretched out in the rain and lost in the thunder booming booming always booming over his head, just one long incomprehensible monosyllable, and Ichigo doesn't remember feeling more or less human in his entire life. No rationality, no coherency, no nothing.<p>

Just _one, long sc—_

He doesn't feel the stab, not really. It's more like a jolt, like lightning licking at the insides of his ribcage; painful, electrifying, burning at something buried very, very deep—deep but rushing closer, closer to the surface, something that he doesn't realize at first as he turns—the glowing blade meeting the flat of a palm—he turns and stares at his father and Urahara and he still doesn't notice the pulsing of something lost returned—

"You should be able to see their form now."

"Rukia—!"

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><p>When it finally hits him—Zangetsu and his reiatsu and the soft black of his shihakusho all at once—it feels a lot like breaking through a glass ceiling, metaphors be damned. A glass ceiling, or the water: waves that'd been heavy and rough for so long.<p>

And being able to see her eyes huge and dark and shining in the glow of the blade, of his powers, of the power she'd given back to him…

Ichigo feels something inside himself creaking, shifting, and finally, finally settling back into place.

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><p>Before the smoke clears, hers is the reiatsu he first feels brushing against his own. It's cool, silky like the length of ribbon that trails behind Sode no Shirayuki, and stray strands weave itself through him as his power solidifies. Her hand very, very briefly touches his too, the pressure there and gone in one long, slow heartbeat.<p>

In that instant of contact—after more than a year of not speaking, of not being able to see each other, of holding things in—he thinks he hears her telling him that she has missed him, that she is very, very glad that he's back.

He tries to tell her the same, and hopes that she understands.

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><p>When the smoke fades away, they're both ready.<p>

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><p><strong>note:<strong> I guess sort of a** part 2** to **some immutable facts**? I just didn't include it with the other oneshot because the continuity didn't see to flow very well.

Annnnd this almost completes the 'things that every IR writer must try'. I've already got the 477 off-panel, the separation instrospective, and now we've got the good old 459 variant. The only thing I'm missing is an angsty 432 off-panel. =u=

**edit:** Moved this here because I felt like it was too short to stand alone.


	16. lock me up inside your body

**note:** See the _not-angst_?

_(prompt: lock me up inside your body)_

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><p>She loves sleeping with him.<p>

Not sex, never just sex, but the actual act of, of just sleeping, his body pressed to hers, their hands linked, his breathing soft and even by her ear.

They're not an affectionate pair in public, but in bed, they never stop touching; there is always a point of contact, chest-to-hip, and if his bed is a bit too small for the both of them, they never mention getting a bigger one.

The contact offers a point of return for the both of them. Rukia knows a little of what had gone on in the seventeen months that she was away, and she knows her own thoughts and feelings all too well—the fierce wanting that had burned in her some nights, the yearning for physical contact, for the heat of their bodies, no movement needed, just that simple act of her bare hand brushing his.

So Rukia loves sleeping with Ichigo.

They are quiet moments, always an aftermath of one thing or another. They don't always _do _anything, sometimes the hollows take too long or there are too many, and no matter how strong he is—how strong _she_ is—even death gods know exhaustion.

They end up in the same bed anyways, and more often than not both the spare bed in Karin and Yuzu's bedroom as well as his closet are empty. They crawl in together, him always first and her clambering up and over his body afterwards. If they're up for it, he catches her by the wrist or the ankle, flips them over and drags her lazily under him, already working at the buttons on her pajamas, mouth brushing at the shell of her ear, her jaw, her lips. Whereas she's hard in battle, cold like her element, she's never less than warm and pliant under his hands.

It is the only time that she doesn't mind the weakness.

If they only sleep, she often ends up sprawled on top of him, his arm hot around her waist. She likes it best when he's over her though, on top and crushing her body down to the mattress, and she can feel his solidity and all his bones and Rukia will bury her nose in the dark crook of his neck and breathe Ichigo in; his warmth and the salt of his skin, his reiatsu lapping tiredly at the edges of hers.

And when she wakes up—when they wake up to each other and she gets to see his face relaxed, gets to see his small smile when he looks at her after first opening his eyes…

Rukia loves sleeping with Ichigo.


	17. the eyes have it

**note:** If Ichigo had never gotten back his powers, fullbring or otherwise.

(_prompt: Rukia's gorgeous eyes_)

* * *

><p>Her eyes are the hardest to forget.<p>

As the days turn to weeks and months and years, the rest of her grow hazy: the feel of her hands, the cadence of her voice, the way her body had looked silhouetted against the sunrise. One day, when Ichigo wakes up old, he might even forget her name.

But her eyes—her eyes stay with him. He knows the exact shape and shade of them, the dark lashes rimming bruised purple in the moonlight as she'd looked away in the rain, the way the firebird had made them incandescent and how in that one last, final moment, those eyes had looked at him with the world and he'd found everything, had found himself in them—

When Death finally comes, Ichigo hopes that she'll smile at him with violet eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>note:<strong> I know Rukia's eyes actually change colors a lot in the manga (in some spreads and color pages they're a definite purple, and then sometimes they're grey), but they're always a consistent purple in the anime and that color's sort of _hers_, so purple it is.


	18. the reason why

**note:** Another fic snippet I wrote for my gif on tumblr.

(_prompt: her smile_)

* * *

><p>Ichigo could count on one hand the number of times he's seen Rukia smile; a real smile—one for no one's benefit but her own. He couldn't remember the circumstances of the first, what little thing had caused her to curve her lips in a way that'd made him automatically think: <em>I want to see that expression on her face again<em>.

In the beginning, he'd wondered why she didn't smile more (she smirked and she teased and she knew how to grin in that off-putting way that his classmates seemed to think was genuine, but it was almost never an actual _smile_), if looking grim and serious was part and parcel of being a death god, but then he'd met Byakuya, and that was the first time Ichigo ever saw Rukia cry.

And underneath that urgency of battle, underneath that steady thrum of _ihavetosaveher _there'd been another thought, a bone-deep knowledge that he never, ever wanted to see her cry again.

Even if it meant saying goodbye, even if it meant he had to go home alone, he would do it, he would take on the whole damn Soul Society for her again if it meant that smile stayed on her face, if it meant she was happy and she was finally doing what _she_ wanted for once.

_(because she was a world changer and she'd made the rain finally, finally stop—)_

And when Rukia looked at him with those large, dark eyes, Ichigo took a deep breath and remembered why he'd wanted to save her so badly in the first place.


	19. never that

**note:** And another.

(_prompt: d-techno life by uverworld_)

* * *

><p>Ichigo knows why Rukia had left, had given up her life so he could have a chance to live, and when he finds her again, he wants to tell her that she's wrong—he's <em>gonna<em> tell her that she's wrong, that she's worthy of being saved, that she's worth more than every one of those bastards in Soul Society put together.

He still remembers the first night, the dark arc of her blood in the air as the hollow closed its jaws around her body, how she'd almost disappeared into its maw she was so small. She'd saved him then too, had been ready to die for a complete stranger.

_Fool_, she'd said once, _it is a shinigami's duty to protect humans_.

(_But not at the expense of your life_, Ichigo thinks, _never that, not for me_.)

He isn't human anymore anyways, he is a shinigami too, and this time it is his turn to protect.

* * *

><p><strong>note:<strong> Still don't know if I got it across that Ichigo's not looking down on giving your own life to protect others-he just never wants Rukia to do the same for him.


	20. the lesson

_(prompt: Isshin gives Rukia a lesson in sex-ed)_

* * *

><p>Ichigo came home from school one day to find Rukia and Isshin in the clinic together. Talking. About <em>things<em>.

"And _this_, Rukia-chan, is how you roll a condom on properly! You should help Ichigo with his because boys usually—oh, hello son!"

Isshin smiled and gave Ichigo a little wave with a condom covered banana.

"_What the hell is going on here?_"

From where he was standing, Ichigo couldn't see Rukia's face; her back was still turned to him, and she looked deathly still.

"What the fuck did you do to her, you perverted old man?"

"I was just teaching Rukia-chan here how to practice safe sex! Now that you have reached a suitable—"

Ichigo dropped his bag and knocked the banana from his father's wildy gesticulating hand. "Shut up! You don't need to—we don't need—augh!"

There was a whiteboard behind the older man covered in pictures of things that Ichigo would rather not look at, and he erased all of the carefully drawn diagrams with one angry swipe. While Isshin lamented the loss of his 'lesson plan', Ichigo whirled around to finally face Rukia.

"And you! You should know better than to go anywhere alone with _him_—wait, what's that in your hand?"

Rukia looked up at Ichigo with wide eyes; it turned out Isshin hadn't sent her into cataclysmic shock after all, she'd just been concentrating very hard on a—

"Ichigo, how does this _dil-do_ thing work?"

* * *

><p><strong>note:<strong> Written for a tumblr request.


	21. before and after

**note:** Another tumblr request, tense change intentional.

_(prompt: blanket hog)_

* * *

><p>When they were together, Rukia always had a really bad habit of hogging the blankets. It didn't matter how they would start out, she would twist and pull and eventually end up cocooned in a mountain of quilts and sheets. It probably had something to do with self-preservation and left over instincts from the Rukongai, because she never remembered in the morning and always vehemently denied everything despite the evidence wrapped around her pointing to the contrary.<p>

Eventually, Ichigo had solved the problem by holding her through the entire night. Rukia had struggled at first and mumbled about personal space and boundaries even though they'd been _sleeping_ together by that point, but in the end Ichigo could always tell when she would relent by the way her whole body uncoiled against his, a pliant sleepiness that made her do things like thread her fingers through his hair as she slept or press so close that he could feel every one of her inhales and exhales across his skin.

It was a good compromise; he got to keep his blankets, and Rukia got to stay warm.

And in return he got to hold her, and rub light circles against her back and even stare at her sleeping face sometimes without any painful repercussions. Ichigo got to see her relaxed and unguarded in a way that he was pretty sure no one else ever had.

He would trade a lifetime of uncomfortably hot summer nights and then another lifetime of frigid winters if it meant he could hold her like that again, that his last memory of Rukia in his arms wasn't her body lying cold and still and bleeding red.

Ichigo would go through hell and back for her, would chase her to the ends of the Earth if he had to, but there were some places where even he couldn't follow.

—

He wakes up, and it's to another day of being alone.

* * *

><p><strong>note:<strong> Did you really think I could stay away from the angst? orz


	22. give up or give in

**note: **Forgot I wrote this!

_(prompt: wage a war of attrition)_

* * *

><p>"Ichi-Ichigo! What was that <em>abomination<em>?"

Ichigo looked down at the small bundle of girl huddled near the foot of the couch, one trembling hand pointing at the flickering TV screen as she stared up at him with huge eyes.

"Calm down, it's just a commercial."

"Just a com-mer-cial? The man was eating himself! I did not know the living world has resorted to cannibalism**—**"

He snorted and didn't bother to look up from his textbook this time. "He wasn't eating _himself _idiot, he's covered in ice cream; it's just a gimmick."

Silence settled, and Ichigo went back to his reading.

"..go, Ichigo!"

"Eh…?"

Rukia stared at him from only a few inches away, and Ichigo had to blink at the sudden proximity.

"…I think my eyes just crossed."

The girl huffed, drawing back and looking away with a scowl on her face.

"…move over, asshole."

"What a nice way to ask," he grumbled, but slid over anyways. It was those eyes of hers and the way Rukia _looked_ at him sometimes that made him want to give her whatever she wanted**—**made him want to give her the world.

He's almost sure she's doing it on purpose.

Rukia sighed happily as she pressed herself against Ichigo's side and his arm automatically settled itself around her shoulders. This close, he could smell the shampoo that she used and the faint whiff of calla lilies that always clung to her skin. This was good, this was ok. His arm flexed once, twice around Rukia's shoulders as he pulled her closer to him, and then Ichigo resumed his studying.

"…Ichigo, why exactly was the man made of ice cream?"

Groaning, he let the textbook slide to the floor before lifting his girlfriend onto his lap.

Nose to nose with a very surprised Rukia, Ichigo asked, "What can I do to make you forget about the creepy ice cream guy?"

Rukia's eyes had slid down to his mouth while he spoke, and when her eyes met his again, there was a smile that he definitely liked on her face. Ichigo knew what that smile meant.

"I can think of a few ways," Rukia hummed.

He wasn't going to be getting a lot of studying done tonight.

* * *

><p><strong>note:<strong> If you want to know which commercial I'm talking about, just look up Little Baby's Ice Cream on youtube (I'm not responsible for any mental scarring you may or may not receive).


End file.
